Mycroft's Gift
by Emma Lynch
Summary: Post Sherrinford, Molly and Sherlock are more than fine. They are friends. It's so lovely to see them running around, having fun and even solving crimes together. The trouble is, everyone wants them to see what's obvious, even Mycroft Holmes, who has fallen into a rather intriguing entanglement of his own. Mycroft is new to love, but can he assist his brother in the same?
1. Chapter 1

**Part 1**

"Something isn't right."

John barely looked up from his laptop. It was a difficult email to write and he'd been trying to broach an appropriate way of conveying 'your daughter wants nothing more to do with you' for the last ten minutes. His fingers hovered over the hatefully unproductive keys.

"I know you heard me."

Clearly Sherlock decided when and how often John was a necessary player in one of his monologues. Mostly, he could have been a floating balloon head, but this time it seemed, participation was necessary. Unfortunately.

"Yeah I did hear you Sherlock. _Something_ isn't right, but then why would you want it to be? Surely your bread and butter is all about things not being … _right_."

If Sherlock conceded to any part of this argument, he seemed unable to capitulate to it, turning from the window towards his friend (and co-worker), clothed in both a blue silk dressing gown and the heavy (and disagreeable) burden of perplexity.

"Certainly, you have a point John (although I do recognise sarcasm when I hear it) and while I do succumb to the lure of deductive reasoning on a regular basis, I do not revel in navigating the insidious miasma of sticky intrigue that curls its way around my brother, pulling me in when I least desire it."

"Mycroft been nagging you over a case again then?" John relaxed, slightly vexed at the trivial reason behind such melodramatic disruption when he least needed it. "Isn't that his M.O.? Brother baiting, or inciting passers-by into government funded espionage to keep tabs on you? Tell me something I don't know." His fingers hovered again, constructing a kindly adverbial phrase to soften the blow to the lacklustre but pitiable Mr Rucastle regarding his absent daughter.

Sherlock had flung himself across the sofa, lighting a cigarette and inhaling his first breath of it before hitting the cushions. John had to wonder how he managed to inject feline grace into the most ugly of movements. Sherlock looked at him, vulpine through the smoke.

"Yes, it's a talent of mine; people think so slowly before they act, resulting in the clunky and clumsy rendering of their movements. It's quite avoidable if your thoughts move a little quicker."

John scowled; he hated it when Sherlock peered into his brain like this.

"However," continued Sherlock, "in answer to your question, I WILL tell you something you don't know."

John's fingers halted again, waiting.

"It isn't being bothered by Mycroft that bothers me - quite the opposite in fact." He inhaled deeply, crossing pale, bony ankles and blowing smoke into the air above his head. "It's the fact I haven't seen or heard from him in over a month and I have absolutely no idea why."

Sherlock abruptly turned his dark head, squinting through dissipating smoke at his friend, the crease of puzzlement still evident between his brows.

"I hate not knowing," he breathed.

~x~

**Part 2:**

Her hair was less immaculate than he was used to seeing before she swept through it, brusque, with a Pearson hairbrush, transforming back into her public self. He adored how he now was able to compare the outer serenity with the layers beneath; where her lack of composure and …. limitations almost took his breath away.

Pearls fastened, skirts smoothed into their customary stiffness and shoulders squared, ready for the real world. He watched, indulgent, spread comfortably across the bed, eyes soft, and caring less about it than was advisable.

"Careful Mr Holmes." She was applying lipstick between the words and his heart leapt, just a little.

"Should I be? Need I be?"

She snapped the lid (Givenchy: _ashes of roses_) and turned, smiling but with an air of admonishment he endeavoured to savour.

"Sentiment. What is it we already know?"

He lay back on the bed, holding his cigarette, blowing smoke upwards and making no attempt to dress. He really was becoming quite dangerously reckless. It would have to stop. Eventually.

"The chemical defect? The lure humanity cannot resist? The caring that has no advantage? Always an intriguing little set of rules to protect those who need such protection." He smiled. "Which we do not."

She capitulated then, smiling through admonishment, with eyes meeting his - hand reaching out and taking his cigarette, him allowing such a thing.

"Indeed we do not." She inhaled, leaning back and allowing him to admire her throat, which of course he did.

"You really are an atrocious big brother, aren't you?" The _volte-face_ was so abrupt he almost felt the whiplash, but caught up instantly.

"Appalling, yet I have always tried to give Sherlock what he needs, rather than what he may imagine he wants."

"Such a Nietzschean approach to filial bonds my dear. One might think you had more than a small shaft of concern, even love…"

Mycroft felt the inevitable (detestable) clutch in his chest but refused to bat it away; she would know, like always.

Stubbing out the cigarette, she leant forward, realising that some games should not be played and gently touched him, a warmth from her eyes reflected in the hand across his shoulder.

"The girl?"

"Certainly _the girl_. _Always_ the girl. It has become a more frustrating cluster of mind games than the Moriarty conundrum."

"My goodness. I thought, perhaps, after Sherrinford…?"

"Infuriatingly, no. It appears that peeling back the layers of your atrophied heart and making a coffin into matchwood with your bare hands can be swiftly compartmentalised into the filing cabinet of your audaciously named memory banks."

"The_ Mind Palace_?" Her smile was gentle, encouraging.

He shook his head, refusing to acknowledge his brother's self indulgent foibles, but standing and pulling his shirt from the floor, acknowledging subconsciously that a professional laundering might be necessary.

"I will not be compartmentalised along with everything Sherlock wishes not to think about. This has gone on long enough and all manner of cases or distracting intrigues have ceased to be sufficient to build up what our childhood stripped away."

She listened, as such confidences - such outpourings - were not common fodder, even between the two of them.

"Stubborn lack of self-awareness and regression into childhood rituals are no longer to be tolerated; Sherlock must open up what is left of his heart before his outstanding mind has chance to … meddle."

"Ah." Instantly she saw him. "You mean us? Does he even suspect?"

Mycroft fastened the ruined buttons carefully, focused in his intent.

"It is merely a matter of time. It will be more than tiresome to engineer, but if successful, Sherlock will be irretrievably distracted by Dr Hooper…"

"You have a plan?" She almost clapped in delight, but that simply would not have done.

Shrugging on his jacket, Mycroft Holmes cast around a hopeful eye for his briefcase and umbrella since he realised the patience of his driver should not really be tested beyond the bounds of what was tolerable. He looked up at her, a discernible glint illuminated the habitually beleaguered cast to his eye.

"Indeed, and if successful, so many birds will find themselves denuded by a single stone."

As she watched him alight into its sleek blackness and the car pull away, she wondered if Mycroft Holmes had any idea how inadequately his rules regarding caring protected him where his little brother was concerned.

"Sentiment," she sighed. "Naturally."


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 3:**

It was when she wasn't expecting to see him, or wasn't even thinking about him that he inevitably turned up. It was like a great big heart-wrenching version of Grandmother's Footsteps.

He was reading her Cosmo and eating one of her apples, but was still wearing his coat and Toby2 hadn't had time to get hairs all over his immaculate Prada.

"Where are we going?" She had long since stopped giving the breaking and entering lecture, especially since Sherrinford. Bizarrely, he made her feel safe.

"Very good Molly. Your observational skills outrank John's on occasion."

"_Bit_ patronising."

He winced and shrugged an apology. He cared. That was progress. He put down the magazine (the article was entitled '_Sex with an Ex - ever a good idea?_')

"It's mid-February Molly. Approximately six weeks after Christmas."

"Good to know you're aware of time and place Sherlock. Now, who's the Prime Minister?"

"Don't make jokes. I am alluding to the significant period of time throughout an endlessly abstemious January, where frugal living and dietary stringency were the watchwords of those who may have over-indulged."

He was pacing now, picking her coat back from the pegs in her tiny hall and wrapping her scarf back around her neck, muffling her mouth before words could be formed.

"Adipose deposits have retreated and bloated middles deflated to a more acceptable girth. Kale salads and sprouting alfalfa have resulted in many shucking off their elasticated waistbands and some even taking the time to visit their tailor to nip and tuck their bespoke apparel."

He stood before her, tucking in the final wrap of wool and surveying his handiwork. She pulled the scarf away from her mouth before saying;

"Mycroft, obviously. You're still convinced he's lying low. You want to ambush him while he gets his trousers taken in?"

She felt a shred of fluff adhered to her cocoa butter lip balm and vibrating with each word, but Sherlock, surveyor or all minutiae, saw it first and lifted one un-gloved hand to pull it free. His hand shook only slightly but for a moment, she felt the heat from his skin, the warmth of his breath and the fizz, the static of his close, living self, blocking out her light.

"There -" His words were almost a whisper as the scrap of wool floated slowly down to the ground (such a contrast from former brash confidence; such a young boy really). "All gone."

_**~x~ **_

**Part Five:**

It had barely been discernable for an embarrassingly long period of time, then - as days turned into weeks, and then weeks trundled on into a month - Sherlock noticed the absence of his elder brother. Much as a splinter removed from a thumb, or an irritating pebble from a shoe, initial euphoria had dissipated and became gradually, undeniably replaced by … _intrigue._

As Sherlock strode purposefully down Old Burlington Street, turning the sharp corner into Savile Row, he consciously told himself that it was not anxiety or (God forbid) _concern_ bubbling up during this post Christmas case slump, but a very definite curiosity, borne from a lifetime of being the subject of relentless meddling and interference. Since his earliest memory (as well as some more recently churned up recollections), Mycroft had been his shadow, his guardian, his jailer (the latter being less of a euphemism than one might suppose) for his entire life, reacting to his every decision, his every choice, with a sweeping sword of judgement hovering over his every move.

"Puppet-master."

Molly glanced up at him, knowing him to be so deep in thought as to be unaware of both speaking out loud and her presence at his side. His brows were drawn down and his pale face set, making it clear his mental journey was not quite as pleasant as his physical one, passing as they did the shop fronts that clothed the backs of the wealthy and well -appointed. Sherlock's hands were shoved deep into his pockets and the cold wind had caught both his hair and scarf, rippling them in its icy caress. Not that he noticed.

_Fuck-a-duck_, thought Molly Hooper, stepping out to keep his pace as she searched his face for clues and the universe for answers - _when the hell am I ever going to not love you?_

Sherlock considered his perverse form of Stockholm Syndrome and how it was now causing him to seek out his unsolicited and unwelcomed guardian at his own tailor's (no less). Surely, it was that he was a detective and therefore needed to detect. The casebook was limp at best and, despite John's insistence, he was not going to be guest speaker at Oxford University's student union, since he was no show pony and no amount of media interest would bring him the immersive cerebral challenges his idling mind needed. Would spying around London to find the whereabouts of his brother be sufficient? It was a tad ignoble, but it had got him out of the house. He also had a reason to involve Molly Hooper. Since Sherrinford (in particular) he found her company inexplicably soothing, but there were only so many times he could drop by the lab without need for blood work or corpses. Annoying.

"After you."

They had stopped in front of a bay windowed Georgian terrace with curlequed iron work and heavily worn stoop. _Crombie Bros. est. 1801_ was written in tarnished gold above the heavily lacquered black door, its brass knocker a curved, stylised dolphin, now made quite redundant by a small electric bell next to a tiny brass sign, _"by appointment only"._

"We don't have one, do we?" Molly smiled nervously. "And I thought Oxford Street Topshop was pushing the boat out."

Sherlock's brow crease told her he had no reference point for her reference and, dammit, that was adorable too.

"Sherlock Holmes," he announced, baritone confidence bouncing through the intercom. "Regarding my brother's Harris Tweed three piece."

As they were buzzed through, he murmured, "Most generous suit in his wardrobe. Only worn for most indulgent shooting lunch parties - and Christmas."

Mr Crombie was short, stout and making the most of his few remaining strands of hair, but even I, thought Molly, can see he has the hands of a tailor. Callouses from scissor handles, pin pricks dotted like Morse across the pads of his fingers and thumbs, wisps of threads beneath neatly manicured nails; she saw it because she was looking for it, and as she looked up, she saw that Sherlock was looking also, but not at Mr Crombie. Suddenly, however, he was all business.

No, the elder Mr Holmes had not been for a fitting since last November and yes, his measurements had changed very little over the last twenty years. Sherlock's eyebrows betrayed him only slightly at this point.

"If anything," Mr Crombie glanced at his cuffs, then the clock and the darkening streets telling the tale of no further appointments and early closing. "Mr Holmes has been wearing a 34 waist for the first time ever since last July and by August, most of his fitted suits have needed slight alteration. A busy time indeed!" More clock watching and Molly stood up suddenly, holding out a hand.

"Sorry for keeping you Mr Crombie. We'll be getting back and letting Mr Holmes - Mycroft - know we got the wrong message from his assistant. Heads will roll!" She snickered self consciously, ignoring Sherlock's stare and steering his elbow towards the door.

They were at the bottom of the stoop when Sherlock stopped, turned and ran back up the steps, ignoring the intercom and rapping urgently on the two hundred year old glass of the bay. Four minutes later, he rejoined Molly on the pavement, just as the streetlights were popping out their tungsten illumination all along Savile Row.

"Forgotten something?" She really was OK with him linking her arm. It was friendly and comradely and she felt … _safe_.

"Mmm… just a thought. I imagined Mr Crombie would have been slightly aggrieved to know his suspicions about his wife were true, but grateful, nevertheless, to realise his mind was not playing tricks."

She halted him, turning to look at him beneath a streetlight, bathing them both in orange.

"He wanted to leave, to check on her?"

He smiled and her treacherous heart jack-hammered, just _because_.

"You noticed. I knew you had. Yes, Mr Crombie's wife has…" he searched. "... has ceased to love him."

She stared.

"His hat. It hung behind you, on the rack. For a tailor to be well turned out is expected, even to the extent of his headwear, but the hat was at least three years old, worn and poorly maintained. Its fashionable edge in 2016 is lacking now. It was expensive but does not suit its owner, therefore the purchaser was close to Mr Crombie but lacked interest in his appearance and personal style. Also, the rates are so high in this area, it would be insanity to close early on a Saturday; every other shop front has its lights blazing and its staff busy. Clearly, Mr Crombie's mind is elsewhere. He has sent his staff away and is rushing home. Did you see his wedding picture displayed in pride of place, Molly? No other personal items, but such pride in being married to a younger and more attractive bride. His fortunes have declined and will continue to do so, since he will not be able to keep his wife happy. She is already, in fact, making arrangements to leave him."

"How… the hell… could you know that?"

He shook his head, but his eyes were kind. More than.

"Can it be that you do not know?"

"I saw what you did."

"But did you observe?"

"Sherlock, you do know this is usually the point where people get annoyed with you?"

He looked at her, tilting his head like a spectator at an air show.

She sighed.

"Tell me anyway," she said.

And he did.

**~x~**

**Part Six:**

"He's texting you?"

Mycroft turned, silver coffee pot in hand and heartsick that her questioning was always so adroit, so perfect.

"We have always texted. I always used to reply."

She lifted the cup (Dresden, antique, paper-thin) and he poured the thick, treacle-like brew he knew she favoured. Despicable, but entirely acceptable. To know your own desires was, to him, an aphrodisiac, a lure, a trap he could endure.

"It appears so. It reads: '_ I hear Marks & Spencer sell a reasonably priced overcoat for early spring. Mr Crombie seems to feel that a stitch in time saves nine. He is incorrect. His wife is now residing with a Premier League football player who has a wife in Honduras. I do hope you are enjoying your sabbatical from my life as much as I am_.'"

"To the point."

"As ever."

"Please forgive me, dear man, but there are certain familial traits…"

He sipped his (perfectly acceptable) Earl Grey and considered. If anything, he loved the way she made him evaluate his well travelled trains of thought.

"Poor Mr Crombie. I knew it was a matter of time. One cannot fish in a pool too long without adequate licence."

"Young, beautiful, entitled, married for wealth. A matter of time indeed."

They both watched the steam rising from their cups into the cold evening air drifting in from the open French windows. Her house was intolerably stifling at all times, a tremendous contrast to Musgrave Hall and a challenge to his central nervous system. Mycroft felt the February cold, yet it was as welcome as the first swallow of chilled champagne.

"Far from being distracted, your brother seems more intent to find you than previously. This is a dangerous game you're playing Mycroft. Did Dr Hooper accompany him?"

"She did, and I have cause to know their arms were linked all the way back to Baker Street."

"You have 'cause to know?' Mycroft, these are government-funded facilities." She affected a sternness she could not maintain. He'd done it for years and she knew fine well how much the Department's successes were owed to Mycroft's excellent brain and unparalleled diplomatic ministrations.

"The cameras were not deployed on this occasion my dear. Several members of the group Sherlock charmingly calls '_the Homeless Network_' volunteered their services after a recent meeting I engineered."

Marvelling how she would never quite be one step ahead of this man, she raised a finely arched brow, putting down the cup gently.

"Sherlock's own band of loyal street spies have betrayed him to you? I find myself more than a little disappointed."

"Ah, be under no illusion; these creatures are fiercely (and most probably misguidedly) loyal to my brother, but as their self-appointed 'spokesman,' a Mr Wiggins confided, _'we're all bleedin' fed up with them two dancin' abaht each other like kids in the playground.'"_

His imitation of Bill Wiggins was so deadpan - so perfect and unexpected - she was pleased to have already laid down her best bone china. It seemed that both Holmes boys were thwarted actors beneath a fine veneer of po-faced superiority. How enchanted was she to find new things about him each time they met. She had initially imagined she would have tired of him quite quickly and the thought of this new trajectory gave her cause for wonder, and a little fear.

"They mean to help you? To push them together? How very wonderful." She had a sudden thought and caught his grey eyes with her own. "How many others have you … _enlisted_ in this little project?"

Mycroft said nothing, but his smile was unmistakable in the minutest of seconds between putting down his cup and finding her mouth with his own. Thus, the conversation was closed, for the time being.

**~x~ **


	3. Chapter 3

**Part 7:**

"You're telling me a _cake_ has its own Instagram account?"

He'd flagged the taxi so quickly, she'd barely had time to assimilate the machine-gun delivery of the day's upcoming events in the exciting new game of _Hunt the Minor Government Official _ which had become Sherlock's latest obsession.

"No ordinary cake," he replied.

The taxi lurched out into the traffic, rolling Molly across the seat and necessitating a steadying hand which unfortunately did not land on the cold leather seat, but rather a warm, wool-clad thigh. Her hand flew away from Sherlock as if electrocuted, but he barely seemed to notice, scrolling with one hand whilst holding onto the door handle with the other. Shame I hadn't managed to do that thought she, mortification ebbing. He managed to look graceful being thrown about by a cabbie who appeared to have done _The Knowledge_ at Brands Hatch race track rather than the traffic clogged streets of London.

"_Patisserie d'Anglais_ is famed in Shoreditch for its french pastries, but the jewel in its crown is the _Valerie Marron-glace_ which is made in batches of two hundred each day and which are always sold out by 10 am each morning. My brother so delights in them he has one of his minions secure the Marron each week, probably using taxpayers money to bike it over to Whitehall in time for elevenses."

"Just once a week?"

Sherlock patted the place where a pot-belly would have been. "Remember, he has a 34 inch waist to maintain these days. My brother is always an admirer of the deferred gratification."

Molly gathered her thoughts and her spilled handbag, trying to forge links somehow.

"So, you think today might be the day for cake? But you say he's not been in the office. Where would they be biking it to this time?"

"That, my dear doctor, is what we should discover. Perhaps we could ask our current driver to wait. He seems more than equipped to follow a motorbike through central London."

Fifteen minutes and several near misses later, Molly alighted, slightly shaken and grateful to be alive onto the pavement outside Patisserie d'Anglais, only to be met by a three-quarters empty shop and a bored looking waiter wiping down tables with an edge of disgust to the swing of his dishcloth.

"Very odd." Sherlock sat, strangely lanky and awkward on one of the delicate, spindly golden chairs. He held a tiny, pink a gold tea cup in his long fingers and had the look of a man sitting in a child's Wendy house, having tea with the dolls.

"It appears the _Valerie Marron_ is no longer on the menu. They are apparently moving in a 'new direction' and neither my brother nor his serfs have been by in many a week. It makes no sense; it was tremendously popular - Instagram may never recover."

He spoke fast, disjointedly, feeling fidgety and unusual, as if he'd swigged from a bottle with a 'drink me' label tied around its neck. It may have been the journey (the driver had serious dealings with the local bookie and had been in a great hurry to get back for the 10.30 race at Cirencester) or the god-forsaken hour of the morning, but he was clearly talking too quickly and failing to look Molly Hooper directly in the eye. His memory, both a curse and a blessing, was inconveniently playing the same loop over and over in his head -

_The lurch of the cab, a squeal of brakes, a smell of polished leather and stale tobacco, Capital Radio churning out Pink Floyd (shine on you crazy diamond), pine air freshener jiggling erratically, the trickle of rain across the window and the rhythmic shush-shush of windscreen wipers back and forth, back and forth … and the hot, small hand, from nowhere, across him, grip tightening, warmth thrumming, burning, searing into his thigh as if she had a branding iron in place of fingers. Gone in an instant (flustered embarrassment he would not have dreamt of prolonging) but its memory, like burnt flesh, irreversible and pulsing with heat -_

"Sherlock? Sherlock - are you alright?" Doctor's concern, eyes assessing him. "You looked … flustered, transported to somewhere."

"I think their pastry chef is holding them to ransom," he announced, words tumbling out, clattering the doll cup into its saucer and almost tipping the chair as he stood up.

"And I know where he lives."

~x~

**Part 8**:

"Holding them to ransom, for a cake recipe?"

Sherlock was only mildly irritated that John was already typing enthusiastically, that writer's gleam already composing some sensationalist by-line.

"Far too simplistic a viewpoint, as ever."

"Rude. Did you say 'Northwood' or 'Norwood' was this blackmailing chef's hidey hole?"

"Norwood," replied Sherlock, already regretting tracking Pablo Lapotain to his sugar supplier's address and counter-threatening that his social media followers would soon be informed that extortion and general under-handedness should also be included in his bio. He supposed it was all splendid that Patisserie d'Anglais should retain its livelihood and justice was done, but he felt strangely listless. Such pettiness was beneath him. Tracking his brother was more than beneath him, yet he felt a compulsion, an almost inexplicable desire to allow it to sweep him along. He hated being helpless, so what was wrong with him?

"Ha!" John turned, the familiar satisfaction brightening his wonderfully open countenance. "'_The Norwood Baker_'! What do you think?"

Sherlock turned from the slide he'd been pretending to scrutinise for the past five minutes and had the good manners to smile at his friend.

"Enchanting," he said, gracefully.

Supper dishes had been cleared away and Rosie long since put to bed. Sherlock hadn't realised he'd been pacing until John appeared at his elbow with a glass that smelt of whisky.

"For you or me?" He surveyed its amber glow, then noticed John's other hand.

"For both of us. You need to sit down and … relax for a bit."

Thus, ensconced in leather upholstery and lit quite fetchingly by flickering firelight, Sherlock attempted to unwind the coils of raw adrenalin that would not leave him be.

"You realise that this is all a little bit mental don't you?

John was (bizarrely) leafing through a recent Tatler, carelessly discarded by a client who'd felt Sherlock needed proof from its society pages as confirmation of her husband's infidelity

"Of course."

"Cape-swirling around London, searching for your nemesis, who also happens to be your brother - "

"Indeed."

"Who also happens to be on Twitter, should you so wish to contact him."

"Yes John, I am aware of the merry dance he is leading me."

John Watson pauses, picking up the magazine again and perhaps re-calibrating his line of questioning:

"Now, it's funny that you mentioned 'dancing'..."

**~x~**

**Part 8:**

Cherry red.

Molly's flush echoed the hue and she realised every move she now made would be accompanied by the faintest rustle. Was she really a cherry red ballgown kind of woman? Slowly, tentatively, Molly Hooper turned around in the catwalk that was her tiny second bedroom (but the one with the full length mirror and the best light) and regretted (again) the foolishness that saying 'yes' to Sherlock always led towards.

Lady Elizabeth Smallwood's charity fundraiser for Tiny Lives was being held this year at Whitehall's own private venue, Chessington Lodge. Mycroft was on the Board of Chessington Lodge and attended whichever fundraiser was hosted there every year. She shifted stiffly, the rustling whispering through folds of cherry red - surely to God, this was where those two idiot brothers would rendezvous and make whatever amends either of them were capable of?

Turning _again_, Molly greatly regretted the _smash and grab_ method of shopping she had employed following Sherlock's mumbled request that she should _'wear something showy'_. She turned once more. Oh, if 'showy' is what you're after, Mister, then this _Big Top of a frock_ is right on target. She felt like a taffeta armada; a Portuguese Man 'o War jellyfish.

Molly suddenly slumped to the floor, surrounded by satin-sheened walls of cherry, which employed a stiffness all of their own.

"Crap," she sighed.

"Agreed," came Mary Watson's voice, since she was never one to massage a person's ego.

"I'm a jellyfish."

Mary snickered. "Not wrong. You're also the loyal friend who's used up almost all of their annual leave and monthly pay packet to accompany a certain detective on his crazy caseload."

Molly buried her head deeper within the jellyfish and groaned. She was the crappiest of assistants. Never there with anything to help but _'the obvious'_ and banalities about people's wellbeing, which was utterly annoying when she had a medical degree (or two) and had seen more engorged viscera than your average person. So, why was she doing it?

Mary laughed out loud (as well she might), for she knew that her dearest, most deluded friend Sherlock Holmes had been all but _dating_ Molly Hooper for some considerable time, yet neither of them had the common sense to acknowledge it. Sherlock's choice of _dates_ were admittedly unconventional, but then, what would Molly Hooper do with '_conventional_'? She contemplated revealing her knowledge to the puddle of taffeta before her, but then decided against such a bold notion. She had seen what Sherrinford had offered up, and corralled her own strong nature for the sake of those concerned. Although limited in this realm, time was useful for the brain to catch up with the heart.

"When is it?" asked Mary, like she didn't know such things already. "There should be time to get another frock…"

"Tomorrow," sighed Molly, reaching for a zip and stepping out of her art installation.

"It's going to be OK," whispered Mary, although it was utterly unfair she was unable to prove such bold assertions.

"You're no help," lied Molly, lying almost naked on her tiny single bed and letting the early spring breeze blow away her burdens.

But no one heard her.

Next morning, her dressing gown was pulled high, her eyes bleary, with a slight indignation at such an early assault on her bell, but the delivery girl was pink-cheeked and breathless from walking her stairs, so who was she to be a bitch?

"Just sign here."

The kitchen bench was mercifully clean, but simply not worthy of the sprawl of spangled black silk and lace that spewed forth from the tightly bound tissue. Her fingers threaded through what resembled a glittering, coal-black spider's web, Molly lifted the garment from its packaging and instantly knew it would coat her curves like molten haematite.

A small card beneath was almost binned with the cardboard but Molly had keen eyes and pulled it free.

"_Apologies. I should have been more specific. SH"_

_This_ was conjured by the brain of Sherlock Holmes? thought Molly Hooper, twisting the card between her fingers, surveying the satin spider web across the bench. Was he advised by John? Mrs Hudson? YouTube? She lifted the confection again, as light as a wisp of inky smoke.

No.

This was a man who knew his Prada, his Dolce & Gabbana, his Spencer Hart, and, (as Molly stood in the dress in front of the same mirror which had betrayed her twelve hours earlier) she realised he also knew her measurements - to the last millimetre.

And she found she liked it.

**~x~**


	4. Chapter 4

**Part 9:**

Molly's knee hurts but she has all of her weight behind it and finds her fulcrum across the shoulders of Mr Pike to be quite the effective one. Her hair is unravelled, ruined, plastered to her neck and forehead, and her beautiful, haematite spider's web dress is ripped from floor to thigh and soaked through with most of the contents of the punch bowl. One shoe is missing and her right eye is closing rapidly from the initial fall, but through her left she can see Sherlock vaulting over upturned settles and weaving expertly between outraged and shocked fundraisers to reach her.

Her captive wriggles and writhes beneath her sore knee, but that only serves to fuel her confidence, inducing her to lean down and whisper, really close to his good ear.

"I tested your ketones earlier," she breathes, watching Lady Smallwood step back to allow Sherlock (closely tailed by Lestrade and his finest) to reach her. "They were well within the normal range." His eyes blink, relinquishing the struggle to the person who carries urine testing strips in her clutch bag and who had completed a course on Home Office approved restraint techniques shortly after dating Jim Moriarty.

"_You _don't have diabetes," hisses Molly Hooper as hands reach her, pulling and deconstructing their little physical arrangement but still allowing her parting words to find their mark.

"But your wife does, doesn`t she?"

She cannot see Langdale Pike's reaction, since Sherlock Holmes has already hoisted him into the welcoming arms of Scotland Yard before lifting her from chaos and discomfort and into a rosewood-lined study under the direction of Lady Smallwood, who is dressed immaculately in midnight blue satin.

"His alibi is ruined," comments she calmly, closing the heavy oak doors and shutting out the brightly lit chaos from beyond.

"He is the embezzler my brother was looking for." Sherlock has already gathered ice in a towel and is applying it to a knee joint and an eye socket he cannot bear to see in such disarray._ (John, where are you?)_

Suddenly, he glances up at her Ladyship (cat-lover, drinker of Turkish coffee, wearer of _Au_ _Claire de Lune _perfume, recent visitor to a very expensive health spa … no, no. not that. Something else…) and attempts to quell his growing discomfiture by his usual methods.

"Had Mycroft made the effort of attending his own fundraiser, then perhaps a more celebratory turn of events could have emerged."

_(calm, almost casual ... important that no-one must see.)_

He turns then to Molly, who takes the ice bundle (since she is a doctor and actually feeling quite euphoric after the chase through the cellars. Who knew Whitehall had as many miles of corridor below as it did above ground?) and flashes him a look which signals _I'm OK,_ and he relinquishes her knee to the velvet cushion beneath, all panic dissipated, all insouciance returned.

"My colleague and I have managed to flush out your mole." A crinkle between his brow telegraphs the tendrils of his disgust.

"Mr Pike was one in an increasingly long line of employees who's checks were far from… (he searches the word) … sufficient."

Lady Smallwood smiles tightly but with a finely polished degree of sincerity.

"So it would seem, " she replies.

**~x~**

**Part 10:**

Later, in entirely different parts of the city, two Holmes brothers sit adjacent to two women who want to hear what they have to say.

_A small flat in North London -_

Sherlock Holmes sees so much without even appearing to be looking, but cannot visit the bruised face and slight limp of Molly Hooper without a shiver of regret and confusion. She sits across her ancient and lumpy sofa, grinning occasionally at the telly and sporadically pushing the bowl of popcorn across towards him. He doesn't take any but she continues to offer it anyway. He is tense, stiff, uncomfortable, but unable to move away from the sofa, let alone leave her flat, which would have been the most logical of actions.

_Paralysed_.

As if sensing his internal struggle without even turning towards him, Molly clicks the screen off and crunches the remaining kernels of popcorn she holds in her hand. She then turns towards him, and her face looks yellowed and shaded in the sudden semi-darkness.

"It's not your fault you know."

_(Shadows sculpt her dimpled cheeks; the retrousse tip of her nose. Eyelashes lengthened by light and dark graze her cheekbones…)_

"I had an absolutely _brilliant_ night. I wore the pretty dress, drank some good Champagne, ran through some spooky underground bunkers and rugby tackled a man faking diabetes in order to do some pretty bad things in the heart of the British Government. I honestly think I deserve a refund on my income tax for this!"

_(Sugar dusts her fingers as she pushes back a fall of silken hair from one shoulder to the other, leaving her neck exposed, vulnerable …)_

"I'm absolutely fine Sherlock. It was my own stupid fault I knocked over the punch bowl and slid across the parquet on my cheekbones! Honestly, I was so hopped up, my _adrenal medulla_ was working overtime."

_Digrastric (anterior), mylohyoid, stylohyoid, geniohyoid, digrastric (posterior)..._

"Sherlock? Are you OK? Is there something on my neck? (hands, fingers, touching, assessing) Are you in some kind of Mind Palace room?"

He swallows, lowers his gaze and tries to calm his own adrenal medulla into something more socially acceptable. He should have been sitting in Baker Street, teasing John about the writing up of this case and firing off triumphantly mocking texts to his brother, but all he can do is sit in the gloom of a north London flat and watch the play of light across the skin, the hair, the very _bones_ of Dr. Molly Hooper, and he knows he is no longer safe.

_A large townhouse in Belgravia -_

"Mycroft, this must end."

As affecting as an assault on his solar plexus, the words reverberate for several nanoseconds too long before he realises.

"You mean, my little game with Sherlock."

He affects insouciance, but his treacherous heart hammers on, riding out the shock of those initial words. She meant his ridiculous cat and mouse, his box and cox with his brother. Of course, of course.

She puts down an almost empty martini glass and he once more notices the grey beneath her eyes and the strain across her mouth and is suddenly and utterly repentant, horrified.

But, he is Mycroft Holmes and she would expect nothing less than composure. He rises, as measured as he ever is and reaches for the vermouth.

"I do indeed," she returns, pulling up her stature in an unconscious caricature of resilience that touches him so unexpectedly, he finds he must look away.

"Doctor Hooper was placed in a position I cannot countenance, even in the name of game playing and subterfuge for our amusement. Sherlock has solved all of the little gifts you have left for him to open. He clearly knows what is occurring. My only confusion lies in _why_." She accepts the new martini with a tiny grateful flash of her pale green eyes. "Why is he letting you do this?"

Mycroft sits back down, but his time he is closer to her, because he needs to be. He looks into her wonderfully open face, all artifice and sophistication now gone, with only sincerity remaining.

"Firstly, these small issues have niggled me for several months on and off, and it has been quite cathartic to see them solved. In addition, my brother does not do well when idle and I feared that Sherrinford, its aftermath and the utterly pointless death of Mrs Watson might have set him along a frequently travelled and ultimately destructive trajectory. Finally... he is letting me do this because ... he wishes it. He is unable to move forward in regard to Dr Hooper and wishes to traipse around London with her solving my little mysteries simply because he is _with her._"

She lets him slip his own drink without comment, giving him time to travel further down this rabbit hole and he was again, grateful for that. It was all most unnerving and Mycroft Holmes was seldom unnerved.

"My darling, _(he feels heat bloom fast and harshly across his face, but accepts a certain ineludible peace)_ by now you know me well enough to understand that I would do anything to ensure … " It was most astonishing how emotions could escalate like this. The price one paid he supposes.

"I would do anything to facilitate the happiness - " He cannot continue and she has his hands in hers and both instantly know it really stopped being a game some time ago.

"Mycroft, you love your brother and want him to be happy. It really astounds me the games you two play. You want him to declare his love for Dr. Hooper and he is so stubborn, he would rather drag her around London solving these puzzles and _not finding you_, than acknowledge your involvement. Something in your childhood was … "

"Exceedingly complicated," he finishes, recovering, grateful and delighted simultaneously. Mycroft wraps his long fingers around her wrists, feeling the beat of her and raises them to his lips.

"I agree that our little adventure is almost at its end, but there must, my dear, be a final curtain call, since I sense the tremble across the thread - he is teetering on the brink and is more than capable of making any number of poor decisions…"

She touches his arm, his face and as his words fade he notes her eyes to be serious.

"You cannot make these decisions Mycroft, not this time. You cannot make it safe. Love is _unsafe_. Love is terrible, destructive, selfish, blind. It is all those things, but it is also the ultimate gift, because it gives us hope in this terrible world."

She touches his face, tender and real.

"Sherlock needs to be unsafe. He needs to take that step himself."

And as she kisses him, Mycroft feels the fall but no longer dreads the landing.

**~x~**


	5. Chapter 5

**Part 11:**

**Two weeks later**

Molly Hooper is furious and it is her pure fury that powers her up those seventeen stairs and allows her to ignore all distractions to the contrary.

"Not now, Mary! I'm busy!"

"You're angry. Not the same thing."

"I'm not angry, I just will not be made a fool of - again!"

"No-one is making a fool of you!"

Molly falters a little at the newel post just before 221B, but only for a moment.

"Not this time they're not," she hisses, through gritted teeth.

"Moll-"

"Out of my head!"

And as the door is opened by a surprised-looking John Watson, Molly feels the silence like a blow.

**~x~**

"He's not in."

Possibly the worst thing you could have said in the circumstances thinks Molly Hooper, arms folded across her chest which was rising with the exertions, making the action all the more ridiculous.

But she didn't care.

Too much. It had been too much to bury, to brush away. That phone call almost defeated her but so bright was her burning heart, that the flame was not extinguished by the humiliation of declaring her love. This time, though.

_This time it would be a mass extinction event._

"You are assuming, John, that I'm here for Sherlock."

John Watson was no stranger to strong, angry and unpredictable women, so he said nothing but put down his newspaper, closed the door behind them and prepared to listen.

Molly gathered herself. She was no prima donna and she wanted to be clear, so she lifted a pile of papers on coagulation in bovine stomach acid from Sherlock's black, angular chair and sat right down in it, arms arranged across the rests.

"Mike, my boss, you know him."

If John was perplexed by this curve ball, he did not show it.

"Yeah, I do." He removed his newspaper and sat down in his own chair, eyes never leaving hers. Her shirt was untucked and her hair in an unusual up-do he'd never seen before. A smudge beneath her eye could have been mascara, but she rarely wore it, so ...

"Don't be him." Molly's eyes flashed fire, reading him right back. "Just be _you_. I want _you_."

Caught out, John flushed but nodded. "Mike's an old friend," he said.

"Then you know," she began slowly, "that despite his teddy-bear exterior, he's no pushover when it comes to running a team."

"Agreed. Mike Stamford was always fair but woe betide you if you were on his study team and you turned in late with a hangover." He smiled slightly at the memory but it was not returned.

"Then maybe I should wonder why it is my holiday rota has been tossed out with the rubbish. Yes, it seems I can take as many days off as I want, but no-one at Bart's has said so much as a dicky-bird to me."

"I don't - "

She was scrolling through her phone, then holding out her off-duty APP.

"I'd been so busy running around London, I'd barely noticed I'd exceeded my holiday allowance - by 6 days. Six days John! Mike Stamford has been all smiles and chit-chat at work and I'm now wondering who's been chatting to Mike and allowing me all this time." She pocketed her phone, eyes too bright, too shiny. "Any ideas John?"

He said nothing, preparing for the next item for discussion, since he knew there would be more.

"Secondly… exhibit 2, if you will… it seems I am now a - a _tramp magnet_."

John Watson had withstood torture on at least two continents, but he knew all would be lost if he showed even the slightest glimmer of humour at this moment. He kept it in.

"I think I might need a bit more … "

Again the phone, this time with several blurred and headless photographs of several homeless people. Recognising Wiggins' distinctive shell suit top, John quickly realised they were indeed Sherlock's homeless people: down by the Royal Horseguards at the Embankment, just off the corner of Giltspur Terrace near Bart's, on the corner of Marylebone Avenue, near the bus shelter for the number 47.

"They've been following me - all over town in fact. Once I started realising it, I saw them on every street corner, in every underpass. I know Bill Wiggins for God's sake! Why is this happening John? Why has he sent his minions after me?"

But John said nothing, since he knew what was coming.

From beneath dark lashes, eyes the colour of molasses peered up at him, noting him, watching him and assessing him… and finding him wanting.

"And then there is_ you_, John."

He lowered his head, but this had always been a considered risk.

"I have no evidence on my phone this time, but your absence tells a story."

John knows, respects and even loves Molly Hooper too much to bring up his other responsibilities. Besides, Mary would kill him.

"You have always been there with him, on all of his cases, even when you were ill, injured, severely pissed off - "

"That was probably most times to be honest."

A ghost of a smile? Not even that.

"But recently, you have been nowhere. This crazy, reckless, random search for Mycroft has been entirely a project for myself and (she pauses to prepare to say) _Sherlock_ to do together, like that time before, when he came back from the dead."

John remembers and finds he is no longer smiling.

She looks up at him again and her elfin, sweet little face has leached out all of its ire into the dust and he sees only pain, only disappointment.

"Has he asked you, asked _all of you_, to stand down, just so that he can make some kind of amends to me? For that phone call?"

Tears well up and brim across the dam of her lashes and he fucking hates himself.

"Oh, for fuck's sake Molly, no. NO!"

"Because, I don't want that kind of second hand, low rent, patronising, pat-on-the-head kind of love - "

Her voice rises, along with herself, and she stands above him.

"I just wanted to be treated as an … an equal. I don't want Mycroft, Mike, you, and even Mrs Hudson, who's asked me round for Bridge on more than one occasion, to feel sorry for me."

"It isn't like that! It isn't!"

But she was at the door, turning shameful tears away onto the landing where no-one would see them and no-one would judge. But she turns back, because she needs him to know, and says:

"And please tell Mary … tell her I'll be OK now. I don't need all that anymore."

And she was gone.

**~x~**

Sherlock arrived back at the flat around two, still no nearer to his brother but still uncomfortable, uncertain and therefore generally more in-line with 99% of the general populous than he had ever been before. It was most unsettling.

Even more unsettling was the sight of John Watson cradling his sleeping daughter across the sofa, but with such a shockingly distinctive air of tragedy across his features, Sherlock feared the worst (except for the fact it had already happened).

"Rosamund? She is … _OK?_"

He dropped his new lens and keys across the kitchen bench. He'd have loved Molly to have seen it, but it seemed she was much too busy and besides, he had to find new places for all of these new … emotions. Lots of people liked emotions, but was probably unwise to lavish them on one chosen person whenever the need arose. He supposed that's why people had _friends_.

"Yeah." John's voice was little more than a whisper above the head of his sleeping child. "Yes, this girl is fine."

Something in his tone, the silence of the night and the insistent tick of the clock made Sherlock forget his new lens, his tangled heart and even his absent brother, so he said:

"Molly."

And John's eyes creased in pain above his daughters pale golden head and instantly the amorphous, often intangible assumptions, the casual, dream-like state, the euphoria of newly discovered and unrealised love now shimmered together in a horrendous spectre of reality.

"Sherlock, I'm so sorry."

Panic rose up inside him like arterial blood from a ruptured aorta and he felt a ridiculous need to steady himself against the kitchen bench.

"We all only wanted to help," John continued in a pained whisper, " - to bring you and Molly to your senses…"

As he stared into the translucent beams of appalled horror focused in his direction, John reflected that Mycroft, Lestrade, Wiggins et al might be encouraged to share a little of the front line insurgence action next time such a plan was advocated.

"You just needed time, the chance to see one another."

Sherlock was silent, head hung down, lank curls hiding his face.

"She thinks it's me, that it's _my_ design," he murmured, stupified. "Of course she does."

Then, he looked up, and John saw the blankness, the control, the mask. He was back on-line.

"Mycroft," he began, all business and keys and coat swirling towards the door.

"I know where he is."

And he was gone.

**~x~**


	6. Chapter 6

**Part 12: Thirty minutes later**

London in general, and the park in particular, was blooming.

Blood-red rhododendrons rose around each corner, huddled in groups like handmaids. Acid bright forsythia and sweet-scented lilac punctuated the air at every step, like tiny flower-bombs awaiting a breath to ignite them. The dainty, cherry flowers of London Pride flourished in tiny bunches, their muskiness always a sour surprise to the passer-by. Sherlock enjoyed it for its subterfuge in presenting such outward beauty with no subsequent pretty scent to enchant. He liked the unexpected, since so few things usually were. Knowing things could be a curse in a world full of dulling predictability, but then why was it that the _not-knowing _was the thing that usually got him into trouble?

Mycroft Holmes sat on a wooden bench, dark and aquiline next to his black snakeskin briefcase, and enveloped in Savile Row tailoring, together with an additional awkward pinch of discomfiture. His thrice weekly constitutional around Marylebone Park was as predictable as night following day and his route just as habitual. He had always enjoyed feeding the ducks since being a child, although it had always been a question as to whether the bread would had made it as far as the duck pond back in those days. Sherlock surveyed his brother's physique as he neared. Mr Crombie had not been wrong - Mycroft had never looked fitter.

Gaze fixed on a plump mallard leading a row of fluffed out ducklings, Mycroft waited until his brother was a metre away until he turned to face him.

"Good afternoon Sherlock," he smiled a little, careful not to clench knuckles over the umbrella handle. "What took you so long?"

**~x~**

The bag of bread (organic, artisan) was empty by the time they spoke again.

"I must thank you for solving my small puzzles. Annoying loose ends, but as you know, I do so hate leg-work."

A child ran past, chasing a small dog who yapped wildly, causing flurries across the pond.

"The incident with Langdale Pike at Chessington Lodge was a little unforeseen, regrettable even. I did not anticipate Dr. Hooper's tenacity." He paused, but there was no flicker from his sibling. "I shall endeavour to do so in the future," he added.

Slowly, Sherlock reached into his coat, pulling out a small case and enjoying the longing scrutiny as he lit a cigarette. He still did not speak immediately, but punctuated the bright spring air around their heads with sporadic clouds of tobacco and the siren song of nicotine before:

"Still the puppet-master, brother mine." A statement.

Mycroft blinked. He knew Molly Hooper's injuries to be minor, so surely ...

"So sure of an outcome, so prideful of your pitiful knowledge of the human heart - "

The slight tremor that played across his brother's fingers as he breathed in the cigarette halted Mycroft's self confidence in its tracks.

His little brother was not here to spar with him; to bait and to mock his audacious little attempts at matchmaking. He was not here make light of Mycroft's own secretive forays into a relationship and to expose his naivete in doing so. Sherlock was here because he was _absolutely furious._

Mycroft crossed his legs, again tightening his grip on the umbrella handle and dampening down a surge of fear. Surely, after the ball, when she had arrived in that incandescent dress ... surely he had declared himself? He forged forward again.

"The game is over, Sherlock. You were a willing participant and subsequently found some intrigue therein." He knew he sounded more certain than he felt.

Smoke. Birdsong. Sherlock's pale eyes were bright with anger, and also, with pain.

Mycroft found his heart was now racing, and he longed for just one draw on that cigarette.

"Everything I have ever done has always been in your best - "

Sherlock turned suddenly, dropping the cigarette and crushing it into the gravel. Children voices, ice cream vans, a girl breaking off her engagement just behind the hedge - the park was sensory overload, but then everything was these days.

_"Don't._"

His calm disgust hit Mycroft like a blow. How could something so certain have failed? What had happened? It was so rare for him to flounder in ignorance, he felt the panic rising, sweat breaking out across his brow.

Sherlock still looked, eyes now calmer but the pain bloomed from their depths, jagged and raw.

"Being in love suits you, Mycroft," he said, standing to go and allowing his fingers to lightly caress the skin, the handle, the combination lock of the snakeskin briefcase, carrying so many secrets within its depths.

"Be careful" he added, turning towards the hedgerows that would take him back into the urban jungle he knew best, "all hearts are broken."

Caring was certainly not an advantage.

**~x~**

**Part 13: Two months on**

Gregory Lestrade felt he must have been mistaken. He frowned, then blinked. Then frowned again.

"Sorry, you said he was _babysitting_?"

"Yup."

"_Looking after your child_ kind of babysitting?"

"Well we don't own pets (unless you count the newts)."

Greg scrunched up his square-jawed appeal into a moue of disbelief.

"_Sherlock_, you say?"

John laughed, pulling their brimming, cold glasses across the bar and cocking a fond eye towards the beer garden which had yet to fill up on what was shaping up to become a fine summer's evening.

"He's good with her, he really is. His rendition of _The Owl and the Pussycat _has her in stitches."

Greg's eyes were wide.

"Though, he could probably read the FTSE index in the right tone and get the same result." He gestured to the door again, a pack of crisps in each pocket. "Shall we?"

The garden was cordoned on three sides by honeysuckled high walls which succeeded in mostly blocking out the traffic noise and pollution. John fancied he could hear bees buzzing as music filtered through from the bar and muffled bursts of laughter broke through the quiet. He lifted his pint and its cool hoppiness was blissful. He'd been so sad for so long these moments really meant something, gently reminding him what it could feel like to be happy again some day.

He hadn't seen Greg for a week or so and it wasn't long before conversation turned, as it naturally did, towards Sherlock.

"So, things are - ?"

"Same." John licked the moustache of foam from his top lip.

"Ah."

"Still solving things, still irritating almost everyone, still ensuring we'll never get our flat deposit back. Still being Sherlock."

"Still missing her?"

John looked up, sharing the guilt they both still felt.

"Yep. We thought we were being so sodding clever, pushing them together and making them into some kind of detecting duo. I let Mycroft talk me into … into…" He sighed, taking another gulp. "Nah, it was on me. Totally. My fault."

"It's on all of us John. We all wanted to help."

"After Sherrinford, you see, all bets were off. I saw Mycroft differently; really believed in his care for Sherlock. Fucked up family, but those brothers helped each other to survive every day, even if neither of them admitted to it." He sighed again. "But I - we - messed it all up and my best friend is dying inside."

"She won't see him at all? I see her at the lab some days and she smiles at me … " Greg put down his pint, contemplative, considering. "But she's - she's not really smiling. It's like a - (clasping a hand over his face) - a mask, hiding something, something she wants to protect me from."

John shook his head, looking down and watching a black-eyed honey bee crawling almost languidly through the spilt beer patches on their table. Lucky bee, he thought. He knew Mary was furious with him too. He hadn't heard from her for weeks.

"We've bloody broken them," he said, watching Greg nod in silence as the sun set theatrically across the beer garden wall.

**~x~**


	7. Chapter 7

**Part 14:**

Molly Hooper tapped quietly at the door.

She was never keen talking directly to relatives, and certainly not at their homes, but Mike had asked as a special favour. The daughter had been missing for so long before she'd been found, the whole family had been wrenched apart and Mr Rucastle had experienced a resurgence of his agoraphobia. It was on her way home anyway, she reasoned, and who was she to be too busy to offer a few words of comfort to a man who couldn't even attend his own daughter's funeral. Just a few words to explain how she'd not suffered was usually enough. It wasn't like they wanted her to go into details, like at inquests, or with certain other people. Most people just didn't want details. They longed for vague. They needed comfort.

She knocked again, hoping he wasn't too agoraphobic to answer his own front door.

Then, slow, ponderous footsteps and a hunched silhouette through the frosted glass. A moment, then another and Molly fancied she could hear him catching his breath behind the glass as he gathered himself.

"Mr Rucastle," she spoke quietly, calmly. "It's Dr Hooper from Bart's. Mr Stamford asked me to call. You wanted a chat - about your daughter."

Slowly, gradually, the door clicked on its hinges and creaked open a wide enough crevice for a crumpled, mole-like face and round glasses to peer through. Tiny eyes assessed her and gave her time to take in the patched slippers, the stained waistcoat and the hallway redolent of old cooking.

"May I come in?" Tired and heart-worn, she didn't want to linger, she just wanted her sofa. "I just wanted to put your mind at rest, about Violet."

Suddenly, unexpectedly, a glint of life ignited his eyes and he pulled the door fractionally wider, smiling.

"You have her eyes," he said.

**~x~**

"Sherlock! SHERLOCK! Don't you dare pretend you can't hear me! Though it's a miracle I can even make myself heard most days, what with the sound of that drilling and hammering!"

"And yet, here you are, as audible as ever."

Sherlock leaned out of his armchair at an angle that defied several laws of physics as Mrs Hudson huffed and puffed her way up the stairs. Truly, the basement to laboratory conversion in 221C was not the tidiest nor indeed quietest of projects in a small, central London flat, but somehow it was happening and Rosie miraculously seem to sleep through most of the banging anyway.

She put down a tea tray, piled up with post (clients often preferred the post rather than email; it made it all very traditional for them when employing his services) and toast and Sherlock knew she wanted a chat, since he could think of no other reason his _not-housekeepe_r would be supplying him with waitress service, particularly in the current disruptive situation.

"How long did you say this was going on for? Six weeks I do recall, but it's been a good deal longer Sherlock." She made a huff as she poured the tea, answered her own questions and gave him no time to interject. "I've my nerves to think of you know."

Sherlock lifted a cup, blowing steam away and watching her linger by the door.

"Your nerves were never an issue when the Cartel had dealings with various interested parties. Remember, I know where you hid Irene's phone."

She grinned, glad she could make him smile a little. It had been far too long.

"Yes, well that was then. Living with you has shredded what little I have left. If it wasn't for little Rosie, I might just retire to the country to live with my sister."

Sherlock sipped his tea. She always gave him extra sugar when she thought he was sad. She was right. He _was_ sad.

"Very well, if you wish to have the fall of England on your conscience, then go ahead. Leave for the Sussex Downs and raise a hive of bees."

"Oh, you! Open those letters instead of impaling them, and tell those builders to hurry up!" She turned to go. "Oh, and answer that phone of yours! I can hear it ringing through the floorboards! Is it under your bed?"

Sherlock's eyes lit up as he dumped the bone china and leapfrogged the coffee table to his bedroom.

"Genius!" he shouted over his shoulder.

Meeting with John as he came through the front door, she patted his shoulder, feeling lighter than she had in months (builders aside).

"I think he's turned a corner," she whispered confidentially as he mounted the stairs.

However, as John Watson entered his flat, he almost collided into his flatmate who was stuffing his phone into his pocket and pulling on shoes, a look about his eyes he hadn't seen since Baskerville.

"You're going out?"

"No, _we_ are. Molly's in trouble."

He stood up, hair awry, eyes on fire.

"Don't just stand there John!" Sherlock started down the stairs, three at a time.

"And bring your gun!" He shouted, regardless of builders, landladies, or the laws of any land.

**~x~**


	8. Chapter 8

He was tiny. A tiny, mole-like little old man who had been recently bereaved, so what was he doing with a gun?

"Family," he said, in a voice like dry leaves.

"Yes," whispered Molly Hooper. "Yes."

She didn't think quickly around firearms, even if they were brandished by little, myopic old men.

Photographs lined the walls of the tiny, cramped and dingy flat. The Violet Rucastle she knew from the slab bore so little resemblance to the girl in the pictures that she quickly realised that although Mr Rucastle might be unbalanced, he was not entirely wrong - she _did_ share colouring with his daughter, and they had eyes of a similar shape and depth.

"Violet and Edward, such a lovely couple of kids, but they fell out you see. They hadn't spoken for years before she … before she disappeared. It wasn't right." Molly pictured this conversation without the gun waving around to emphasise points he was making and found she much preferred_ that_ scenario.

"Families can be … difficult," she managed to say, looking longingly at her phone on his side table.

She was lucky he hadn't realised she'd texted the first person on her ICE list (her mother) when the phone was still in her pocket, but she was starting to wonder if her mother had taken her seriously… maybe _'git hlep gun_' was too cryptic for Mrs Hooper. Maybe all those episodes of _Columbo_ hadn't paid off after all. When he'd found her phone she'd thought the gig was up, but he'd just looked … _disappointed,_ and placed it reverently on his table like an alien artefact. Perhaps, to him, it was.

But then she'd heard the vans. Two vans pulling up with what sounded like police tyres in the street below with slamming doors, but no sirens and no protocol.

"Get the cones out the back!" Came a loud but casual voice, accompanied by more slamming as road working tools and barriers were lifted out.

Her spirits fell. No-one knew she was in danger. Everyone who did know of her whereabouts thought she was comforting some little old man and then toddling off home to watch _Fleabag_ with her cat. Molly felt the prickle of panic in her armpits as the adrenaline coursed through her central nervous system, flooding her with fight or flight.

"I'd do anything to get you two back talkin' again," said Mr Rucastle, looking into her dark brown eyes and seeing someone else. "_Anything_."

A rise in distress seemed to facilitate a more precarious handling of the gun and Molly gripped the arms of the old, battered chair she sat in, watching him scour the walls, trying to mend what couldn't be mended. A mealy-looking fair haired adolescent she assumed to be Edward stared out from several of the pictures above the fireplace. _Siblings_, she thought. Siblings and their issues. Thank God she'd been an only child.

And then it came to her, like a sudden inspiration, a miraculous gift, and she held out her hand, without even the barest hint of tremble.

"Let me phone him," she said, forcing a light smile, her throat dry and parched like crackling paper. "It isn't too late ... _Dad_."

She faltered. Had she gone to far? But he was smiling, picking up her phone and handing it to her.

"Yes," he said, grateful, almost putting the gun down (but not quite). "Speak to him. Tell him it was a silly mistake and that you still care ... _Tell him!_" Agitated again.

Molly grasped the solidity of her phone like a lifeline and then hesitated, but for only a second.

"I'm ringing him now Dad, " she said.

**~x~ **

"Hello." He is breathless, heart hammering, sweat breaking out across his chest, his back, his face. The van is dark and airless; why doesn't someone open a window?

"Hello Molly, are you alright?"

"Hello Edward, it's Violet. I don't want you to hang up. Don't hang up... I need to speak to you. _Please_."

Instantly, he knows.

"Yes, yes, Violet."

John and Lestrade are wide-eyed, but Mike has briefed them too.

"Violet," continues Sherlock, entirely unsure how many sides of the conversation could be heard _(never underestimate little old men who ask for help and you palm them off to your flatmate because you can't be bothered)_, "Violet, I can't tell you how wonderful it is to hear your voice." He smiles into the phone as if to convince.

Molly cups her phone, as if holding the words to herself.

"Yours too. It - it's been too long. _Far_ too long."

Mr Rucastle is very still, holding his gun across his chest with two hands, rapt, listening to his children.

Sherlock swallows, awaiting her words, choking down every kind of panic, batting away emotions before they have a chance to take hold. _Control._ It was all about the control (so why couldn't they open a window?).

"Violet," he continues, all around him frozen in time and space. "Violet, I'm so very sorry we lost touch. I never, ever meant to … to hurt you."

"I know," Molly whispers, no longer seeing anything but the phone. "I know you are, my darling."

Sherlock chokes a little, his face as white as chalk, and it is all John can do not to touch him.

"I need you to - to forgive me," he continues, blinking. "You have to _forgive me_, because nothing else can matter anymore."

Molly holds a breath. Eyes closed, she hears the shuffle of carpet slippers, the distant, hopeless sound of a siren across the river. A clock ticks on the mantle and she lets it seep out of her.

"Edward - " tears brim and fall, but she cannot care. "Eddie, of course I forgive you, _of course I do_." Her throat aches, a pulse hammers from within.

"I'm not myself anymore ... I miss you... I think about you_ every day_."

The line crackles with a dull silence and Molly bites her lip, closing her eyes again until his voice breaks through the quiet, through the wire, through all the barriers ever made.

"I fear your loss more than I fear anything." His voice is little more than a whisper, cracked, broken, honest.

Her throat aches, her eyes swim, she gasps for air, but she knows he is telling the absolute truth.

"Please, can we start again? Can we?" Molly whispers into the darkness, hearing the clock, feeling the shift of air as Mr Rucastle moves closer, his hand hovering over her shoulder. She opens her eyes; the gun is nowhere to be seen.

"Violet, I - I have made so many, many bad decisions ..."

"Yes."

"I have neglected those who needed and lacked respect for those who cared."

"Yes."

"I have ignored the voices of my own heart and pushed away good counsel..."

A beat of time, an airless space, a certain knowledge of what could be lost and what could be won.

"I am not a good man, Violet. I have let you down."

"You _are_ a good man." Her eyes are wide open, her mind is clear and bright. "My darling, you have always been the very _best_ of men."

He hangs his head, holding the phone to his chest, fighting with himself and losing.

"I'm only as good," whispers Sherlock Holmes, enlightened, fearful, accepting, " - as the person who sees who I really am. I love you."

She breathes, she smiles, she knows he tells the absolute truth.

"I love you too," says Molly Hooper, no longer ashamed, no longer uncertain. "I have always loved you, always. _Always_."

**~x~**


	9. Chapter 9

As it turned out, the Met also had access to drills, cones and barriers and their 'workmen' were all over the flat in minutes. Truthfully, very little force (firearms considered) was needed as Mr Rucastle was led away - old, confused and grieving, he would finally get the help he needed.

"Jesus!"

John Watson paced up and down the police cordon, raking his hair, forgetting his limp.

"Jesus, Greg! I wrote that man a bloody _email_ about his missing daughter! Sherlock gave me a few offhand words of advice and I … I _adapted_ them. God, do you think…? (more hair raking) Do you think that email might have - ?"

Greg was filling out paperwork whilst simultaneously texting a Tinder date. It was his third night shift in a row and his fatigue was palpable, but he still cared.

"Yeah, sure. Your kind words of advice tipped an elderly man in the grips of a grief induced psychosis over the edge, to the extent he kidnapped a pathologist who bore a passing resemblance to his dead kid and threatened her with a gun."

John had stopped by the bins and was listening. Greg put his phone and iPad down and smiled kindly at one of the few the men he was proud to call a friend.

"Everyone's OK, Doctor Watson. Everyone is safe and everyone is actually getting what they need - for once."

They both looked over to a low brick wall, daubed in purple, pink and yellow graffiti, where Molly Hooper and Sherlock Holmes sat, illuminated intermittently by the bright orange tungsten roadwork lights that flashed around them. Even in the flickering darkness of a north London night, the silent movie of their delight in each other was as plain as day. It seemed true intimacy did not require the physical caress of a hand-hold, a kiss or even the stroke of a shoulder, not when eyes found what they were really looking for.

She must have said something as he leaned in to hear, then recoiled, wide-eyed, before throwing back his head and laughing.

"Jesus," said John Watson once more, trying to process such a surreal, dream-like spectacle out there on the street.

Greg shook his head, picking up his iPad once more and grinning indulgently.

"I knew it was going to be something the moment he smashed up that coffin," continued John, decisively.

"Really?" Greg swiped and gave John his full attention once more. "_That_ was the first time? Fuck me, I thought it was _me_ lacking in the deduction skills most days? Come on mate, even Sally knew he had a thing for Molly."

"Sally?"

"Yeah, and Anderson. He was in a bet with her ever since I told them about that Christmas party during the Adler business."

John was slack-jawed. "That was ... _years_ ago!"

"Yep. Anderson was quite taken with the idea of them being a couple. He was hacked off how Sherlock was such a tosser to him but bent over backwards to involve Miss Hooper over there." He sighed, typing slowly and longing for a fag. "S'gonna be a pain in the arse about it now."

Not enjoying being last to the party, John bristled, but his heart wasn't in it, even smiling when the inevitable, beautiful snark of his beautiful girl wound its way inside his head.

"Told ya," whispered Mary Watson, but softer than she might have.

"Thanks, but I'm OK for smart-arses at the moment," he replied, so glad to hear her once again. "But the question is, do I ring Mycroft with the happy news?"

"Like hell!" Mary seemed typically unequivocal. "Let them have this. Let our boy know the shape of his own heart for the first time in his messed up life - at least for a little while."

Mycroft would understand.

**~x~**

**Epilogue:**

**One Year Later**

Chessington Lodge stood in several acres of delightful parkland which vied with Buckingham Palace for the beauty of it's arboretum and its privacy. Sherlock Holmes stood still and observant amongst several huge beeches, watching people come and go up and down the sweeping marble steps and into the gardens. Distant music drifted, along with the other-worldly fragrances of night-scented stocks and sweet, sticky honeysuckle, from the ballroom and into the shadows of the night garden. His brother had provided such exquisite claret he found his head buzzed pleasantly from dinner, and although he physically ached for a cigarette, he had locked that drawer in the mind palace some time ago.

The earthy smell of sap from the trees permeated the small copse reminding him of his violin and, in turn, of Eurus. Small scufflings from night animals amongst the leaves and the high, resonant squeaks of the pipistrelles circling his head in sonic perfection made him feel protected. Safe. Secluded. Calm.

"Lady Smallwood, how enchanting you look tonight."

She had barely cracked a twig as she approached, but he'd felt her presence all the same. She was delightfully feline.

"Thank you Sherlock." She held two glasses in her hands, swirls of whisky that were peaty, smokey like the night. "I should know better than to try and surprise a Holmes boy."

"Please do not do yourself a disservice since I assure you that you surprised this one."

The lights from the house and brightly illuminated balcony glinted across her teeth as she smiled, dipping her head in acknowledgement.

Sherlock looked back towards the music as it changed to a waltz. He crinkled his brow slightly and she missed nothing.

"You disapprove?"

"I believed Mycroft found Strauss (and I quote) 'lacklustre and derivative' on occasion. At least he did when I was six and trying to practise in the drawing room."

She smiled again, but then, why wouldn't she?

"Ah, he does Sherlock, he does." She looked, catching his eyes this time and holding the gaze. "He is indulging me, since I adore Strauss."

Sherlock nodded in acquiescence, considering her serenity to be also quite calming.

"Congratulations," he added. "You have undertaken a task many would quail to even consider."

"Indeed. Your wedding gift was … unique. One traditionally enters into wedlock without the necessity for quite so many … _locks_. Usually."

"You have pantries? Fridges? Freezers? My brother is seldom so trustworthy around carbohydrates. Believe me, the locks will be of use."

He does not look at her but knows she is smiling.

A minute passes as they stand in silence as _Roses from the South_ takes its party-goers on an energetic tour around the magnificent, glittering ballroom of the Lodge.

"Thank you." Sherlock's eyes still focus on the ballroom. "Mycroft - " he turns towards her, reaching out and taking the cut crystal from her hands. " - Mycroft deserves some peace."

"Thank you Sherlock. He's waiting for you in the study."

And he nods, holding the glasses, walking out of the shadows and towards the light.

**~x~**

Mycroft Holmes sat at a ridiculously overblown walnut desk that crouched like a giant, curlicued toad in the centre of the room. Past times would have seen Sherlock not attempting to wipe feet that were muddy from the garden, possibly even arranging them atop such a Victorian monolith. Not anymore it would seem.

Mycroft barely looked up from the laptop as his brother entered, but as Sherlock placed the whisky down across the green leather and arranged himself tidily in the chair opposite, his fingers slowed, stilled then gently lowered its lid, taking in his brother in his white tie, untameable hair and pale eyed languor.

"For me? How ... _amenable_." He reached across accepting and breathing in its fragrance. "Outstanding choice," he added.

"You have your new wife to thank for that," said Sherlock, but not without warmth.

Mycroft sighed, sipping at his drink. "I have been rather preoccupied in this room for the past hour. This is probably more than I deserve."

Sherlock smiled. "As is she," he rejoined.

"I completely agree."

A silence was punctuated only by faint Strauss and laughter from the ballroom and a sonorous pendulum marking out time from the Grandfather clock in the corner of the darkened room, until Sherlock lifted his glass.

"To you both, Mycroft. This day both astounds and delights me in equal measure and I wish you every happiness."

Mycroft lifted in toast, not trusting himself to speak.

Sherlock smiled. "Aren't emotions appalling?"

"Despicable," managed his brother, happier than he'd ever imagined he was entitled to be. "But not without merit."

Moments past, as he tentatively continued:

"Sherlock, you have my sincerest of apologies regarding my - interference."

The words hung between them, a proffered branch of peace and conciliation; a promise of something rising from the ashes of Sherrinford that would be ... _better_.

Sherlock nodded.

"No more the puppet-master? It is fitting since you now have more than enough personal affairs of your own to wrangle I should imagine. In my limited experience of women, I can also imagine that the new Mrs Holmes is no goldfish."

"Indeed she is not." He shuddered at the thought. No-one else could have reached him but she.

Gesturing to the closed laptop, Mycroft came to the business in hand. He had not spent an hour away from his new wife on his wedding day for nothing.

"I have been finalising the drafts of some essential documentation - family matters."

"Doesn't the Registrar deal with that, or do you have a surprising new hobby you haven't yet shared?"

"No, Sherlock, not for myself. This is something I have been discussing at length with our parents as well as the family solicitors in Blenheim Street. Things simply can't stay the same."

Sherlock shifted in his chair, placing the glass down gently. He had mentioned this very thing to Molly Hooper this morning, who had vastly underestimated his brother's observational and deductive skills. He, however, had not.

"May," he said. "The baby is due in May, as if you didn't already know."

Mycroft raised one eyebrow speculatively.

"I considered April, but Elizabeth, as ever, was correct. Congratulations, brother mine. I am delighted that the lineage is continued, but ... " he knew he should select these words with great care. " - more than anything else, I am delighted in your happiness, your good fortune and my immutable belief that you will be the very best of parents."

Sherlock's face was blank as he stood, facing his brother, who slowly stood himself.

"This desk is ridiculous," breathed Sherlock as he walked around to where his brother stood and held out his hand.

"Thank you, Mycroft," he said to the man who would most likely be a rather splendid uncle.

And they shook hands and they smiled.

** D**

**~x~**


End file.
